


What Shall We Die For?

by dearmrsawyer



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-30
Updated: 2012-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-26 16:52:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearmrsawyer/pseuds/dearmrsawyer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will is about to become part of the crew, part of the ship. Elizabeth's perspective of Will's death in At World's End.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Shall We Die For?

Her heart pounded – Elizabeth had lost herself to the beat of Davy Jones’ heart, believing its powerful pump to be her own. Fear coursed through her veins as she made her way shakily to William, his breathing laboured. His eyes were wide and unfocused, his hand gliding over the metal blade protruding from his chest.

All she could hear was the slicing of flesh replaying over and over, mingled with the cold-blooded laugh of Davy Jones himself. Blood ran, coating Will’s jacket, seeping onto the soaking deck. She held his face, calling to him, trying with everything she had to lock eyes with him. He was fading fast and it was all she could do to keep going. His breathing slowed, his body falling limp beneath the sword embedded within him. Elizabeth could feel the blood on her own hands – Will’s blood – but she didn’t dare let go.

A body approached – she couldn’t look away – and suddenly Will’s arm was being pulled, a knife thrust into his palm. She looked up to see Jack, his face determined. Will’s hand couldn’t grip, needing Jack to guide him and hold his fingers closed. She turned back to his face; he was unaware of anything around him, lost in himself. There was a violent thrust downwards as Jack buried his own knife deep within the heart of Davy Jones, earning a shudder throughout all the seas in all the world. The wind stilled for a second, the rain easing only for a moment, before Elizabeth managed to tear her eyes from Will’s and look up to see Jones’ face; shock adorned his features. Each tentacle on his face twisted in the cold approach of death, his greyed skin paling further as he looked to the heavens and called his lover’s name one last time.

Before the sea lord had even tumbled over the edge, Elizabeth was back with Will, doing everything in her power to keep him. Voices screamed and called all around them, men running to their stations to save the lives of ever crewmember on board. But Elizabeth didn’t care about that – she didn’t care who lived, as long as it was Will. His face dropped against his chest, held up only by her hands, and he let out a slow, rattled breath before his eyelids dropped, and he was gone.

Every part of Elizabeth screamed in agony – he could not be gone; she would not let him be gone. He was her whole life; her heart and soul. She was nothing without him. She was nothing now.

The chanting disappeared into the background, her ears clogged with her own shrieks of loss.

_Part of the ship, part of the crew. Part of the ship, part of the crew._

Arms pulled at her but she couldn’t leave Will here. His body lay upon the cold deck without any sense of life left within it, but she had no will to leave. His skin radiated heat amongst the cold of the perpetual rain coming in from all corners of the dark sky, and she laid her hand against his still chest once more, feeling no movement beneath the skin. Her own heart wrenched painfully as she was pulled from him, turning to see Jack, determined once again, grabbing at ropes from who knew where – she didn’t care. Her eyes were trained on her love, her mind replaying the moment when he would wake, unaffected and unharmed, come to save her from her despair. But he didn’t wake. A shot echoed in her mind and she was pulled from the tumbling ship, flying through the air, unaware that she had taken a strong hold of Jack’s waist.

She wanted to kill Jack, destroy him for making her leave behind Will. She looked back to the sea, the open water swirling down to the depths and overturning the ship. It sunk into the darkest hole, swallowed by the crashing waves and fury of Calypso. Her head fell against Jack in defeat. Her dearest love, the one who held her purpose, was gone. Claimed by the sea as his father had been.

The waters evened beneath them as she landed gently with Jack beside her, pulling her to the Black Pearl, sitting nearby. Her eyes remained on the place where the Dutchman had disappeared – she never wanted to look away.

Elizabeth throbbed. Her whole body felt as if it was failing; dying. Commotion surrounded her, sailors trying to find a way out. Elizabeth didn’t care. She didn’t want a way out. She had lost her reason for escaping her end, and didn’t see what more there was for her.

Every loss built up inside her – her father, James – and there was William standing at the front of her mind, his smiled washing through her and enlightening her sorrows but for a moment, when the sight of his waning body replaced all else, and she could hold it in no longer. The tears fell relentlessly, her body wracking with sobs, fresh waves coming over and over, as those of the sea. Her heart melted away until there was nothing left, and the seconds felt like hours. It didn’t take long for her to stop, not because she had moved on, but because she could not cry anymore. She could not handle more pain, and so she stopped. She cut herself off from emotion, her eyes watching the sky calm with a cold emptiness she had never felt. Barbossa yelled orders behind her, but she would do nothing.

William was gone. There could be no victory now.


End file.
